 |
|
Durrant Group’s new building in the Port of Dubuque showcases several sustainability technologies and is also a reused existing building. |
Architecture firm Durrant Group used the redesign of its $3.7 million headquarters building as a way to showcase the firm's creativity, design talent, and technical expertise as well as to create a laboratory for experimentation and education.
The Dubuque, Iowa, firm's stated desire was to set a high sustainability standard for both itself and its clients by recycling a 22,890-sf downtown building. Ninety-five percent of the construction materials removed from the original building by general contractor Epic Construction of Dubuque, were diverted from landfills and reused on the headquarters or in other Durrant projects. The building's systems, including the computers used by the firm, received the latest in sustainability technology. The firm is applying for LEED Platinum certification.
“Chilled water storage, photovoltaic (solar power) converters, geothermal heat exchangers—this project has some of the best sustainable technology,” said David Callan, PE, CEM, LEED AP, SVP of Environmental Systems Design, Chicago. “This is walking the walk.” —Jeffrey Yoders, Senior Associate Editor
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Two Rivers Marketing: Industrial connection
It was supposed to be the perfect new office. In July 2003, Two Rivers Marketing Group of Des Moines, Iowa, began working with Shiffler Associates Architects on a 14,000-sf building to house their rapidly growing marketing firm. Over the next six months they put together an innovative program that drew on unprecedented amounts of employee feedback.
| Aug 11, 2010
AIA Course: Enclosure strategies for better buildings
Sustainability and energy efficiency depend not only on the overall design but also on the building's enclosure system. Whether it's via better air-infiltration control, thermal insulation, and moisture control, or more advanced strategies such as active façades with automated shading and venting or novel enclosure types such as double walls, Building Teams are delivering more efficient, better performing, and healthier building enclosures.
| Aug 11, 2010
Glass Wall Systems Open Up Closed Spaces
Sectioning off large open spaces without making everything feel closed off was the challenge faced by two very different projects—one an upscale food market in Napa Valley, the other a corporate office in Southern California. Movable glass wall systems proved to be the solution in both projects.
| Aug 11, 2010
Silver Award: Pere Marquette Depot Bay City, Mich.
For 38 years, the Pere Marquette Depot sat boarded up, broken down, and fire damaged. The Prairie-style building, with its distinctive orange iron-brick walls, was once the elegant Bay City, Mich., train station. The facility, which opened in 1904, served the Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad Company when the area was the epicenter of lumber processing for the shipbuilding and kit homebuilding ...
| Aug 11, 2010
Thrown For a Loop in China
While the Bird's Nest and Water Cube captured all the TV coverage during the Beijing Olympics in August, the Rem Koolhaas-designed CCTV Headquarters in Beijing—known as the “Drunken Towers” or “Big Shorts,” for its unusual shape—is certain to steal the show when it opens next year.
| Aug 11, 2010
Top of the rock—Observation deck at Rockefeller Center
Opened in 1933, the observation deck at Rockefeller Center was designed to evoke the elegant promenades found on the period's luxury transatlantic liners—only with views of the city's skyline instead of the ocean. In 1986 this cultural landmark was closed to the public and sat unused for almost two decades.
| Aug 11, 2010
200 Fillmore
Built in 1963, the 32,000-sf 200 Fillmore building in Denver housed office and retail in a drab, outdated, and energy-splurging shell—a “style” made doubly disastrous by 200 Fillmore's function as the backdrop for a popular public plaza and outdoor café called “The Beach.
| Aug 11, 2010
Integrated Project Delivery builds a brave, new BIM world
Three-dimensional information, such as that provided by building information modeling, allows all members of the Building Team to visualize the many components of a project and how they work together. BIM and other 3D tools convey the idea and intent of the designer to the entire Building Team and lay the groundwork for integrated project delivery.
| Aug 11, 2010
Inspiring Offices: Office Design That Drives Creativity
Office design has always been linked to productivity—how many workers can be reasonably squeezed into a given space—but why isn’t it more frequently linked to creativity? “In general, I don’t think enough people link the design of space to business outcome,” says Janice Linster, partner with the Minneapolis design firm Studio Hive.
| Aug 11, 2010
Great Solutions: Products
14. Mod Pod A Nod to Flex Biz Designed by the British firm Tate + Hindle, the OfficePOD is a flexible office space that can be installed, well, just about anywhere, indoors or out. The self-contained modular units measure about seven feet square and are designed to serve as dedicated space for employees who work from home or other remote locations.
